Honey and Clover 1 by Chica Umino: A-

From the back cover:
Takemoto, a sophomore art student in Tokyo, thinks his greatest worries in life are finding ways to eat more meat and getting to class on time. But with friends like his, life is never going to be that tame.

Review:
This series reminds me of Maison Ikkoku in a couple of ways. The main character is kind of a regular dude, and lives with an assortment of neighbors, at least one of them very odd. Hagu, a mysterious and diminutive new student, a relation of their favorite professor, enters their midst and he becomes interested in her. The other similarity is that it took me a couple of chapters before I really warmed up to the characters.

So far in this first volume, things are pretty episodic and time moves quickly. You have the chapter where the guys wonder why disheveled Morita is a chick magnet, the one where they have a barbecue by the river, the Christmas party, etc. In the later chapters, however, longer threads become apparent—Hagu’s issues with stress, another classmate’s unrequited love for an older woman, and Takemoto’s rash pledge to build something for Hagu and his obvious uncertainy about his abilities and future.

The art is neat, too. The lines are light and kind of sketchy, and there were some panels I really liked, like when an ominous cloud mass was simply drawn as a bunch of scribbles or the beatific scene of the boys enjoying the rare treat of meat in the company of friendly woodland creatures. Hagu really is adorable, though the proportions of how much smaller she is than Takemoto kind of change around a bit.

Honey and Clover manages to be cute, bittersweet, and amusing simultaneously, which is certainly a combo that appeals to me.